The Region - News from April 29, 1985

The La Brea Tar Pits will be monitored by Los Angeles County officials as part of a campaign to reduce the threat of the potentially fatal St. Louis encephalitis virus. The West Mosquito Abatement District has placed 20 chickens in a coop near the tar pits, a prime breeding location for disease-transmitting mosquitoes. Because the disease is carried by birds and transmitted by mosquitoes to other animals, the “sentinel flock” of chickens will act as an early warning system, district manager Norman Hauret said. Monthly blood samples taken from the chickens will be sent to the state Health Department’s virus laboratory in Berkeley for analysis, as will the bugs trapped in the area, he said. State and county health officials warned of the possibility of an epidemic last year when 26 cases of the usually rare disease were reported in Southern California--16 of them in Los Angeles County. There was one fatality. No cases have been reported this year.